The African Union (AU) and its member countries regularly campaign for reforms in the United Nations Security Council. This was also the case at the recent UN General Assembly. “The Central African Republic reiterates its support for the African Union’s common position,” said Faustin Archange Touadera, President of the Central African Republic, at the meeting in New York.
The AU is calling for deep reforms of the United Nations and the expansion of the seats of the members of the Security Council in order to achieve fairer participation and better representation of all continents, it said. The goal: to give the continent a stronger voice in the important body that repeatedly plays a key role in resolving international conflicts. The five permanent Council members – France, the United States, Russia, China and the United Kingdom – do not, in the AU’s opinion, make a sufficient contribution to bringing Africa’s interests forward.
Discussion about Africa’s “neutrality” in the Ukraine war
An example of conflicting perspectives is the war in Ukraine, which also has significant repercussions on the African continent. Fuel and grain prices have soared, but many African countries have chosen not to take sides in the ongoing war.
Macky Sall also campaigned for the right to one’s position at the UN General Assembly
According to Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who holds the rotating presidency of the African Union, the point is that Africa “does not want to be the breeding ground for a new Cold War”. Sall is referring to the increasing pressure on African leaders to choose sides in the conflict.
“Africa has suffered enough from the burden of history and does not want to be the site of a new Cold War, but rather a pole of stability and opportunity open to all its partners for the mutual benefit,” said Sall. He urged Russia and Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table to avoid a major global conflict.
A multilateralism that forgets Africa
In his first speech at a UN General Assembly, Kenya’s newly elected President William Ruto called on world leaders to reconsider the multilateral system in relation to Africa. “From genocides and civil wars to agricultural development and pandemics, the African continent has repeatedly borne the brunt of weak solidarity and the disastrous failure of multilateralism,” Ruto said.
“A look at history shows that the last time Africa was the focus of strong and effective multilateralism was during the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885.” The 55-year-old spoke of a “failure of mankind”: The system of multilateralism has often ignored the people of Africa in crises and thrown any moral concerns about Africa overboard.
Become an equal partner on the world stage
A criticism that is also voiced outside of the political leadership circles. “I don’t think the West has the best interests in Africa,” Ciku Kamau, a shoe retailer in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, told DW. “If that were the case, Africa could be as developed today as the countries of the West are.” Kamau calls on Africa to unite as a continent: “We could be much further if we didn’t just do what the West wants.”
At the “Berlin Congo Conference” in 1884, Europe discussed – not with Africa
Entrepreneur Cristina Petro agrees with Kamau: “Germany or France should by no means be more important than Nigeria or Ghana,” she told DW in Nairobi. “On a global level, Africa is at the top. Our role and the role of all these other countries should be the same on a global level.”
Petro calls on African leaders to focus more on pan-African issues and less on serving the demands of the international community. Because “then we will be stronger together”.
United by trade
In fact, the continent has recently been able to take important steps in its quest for greater unity. One of them was the founding of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in 2018, which now includes 54 African countries. According to the World Trade Organization, it is the largest free trade zone in the world in terms of member states.
In the regional alliances – here the seat of the East African Community in Arusha – Africa is trying to grow together
However, eleven ratifications are still pending, and otherwise everything is far from running smoothly: The greatest weakness on the African continent is still the obstacle to intra-African trade due to high tariffs, explains foreign policy expert Elijah Munyi, lecturer at United States International University in Nairobi, in a DW interview. “I think the East African case is a good example of how difficult it is. But the East African Community has made progress in terms of some of these bottlenecks,” says Munyi – and is convinced that if Africa could succeed, its own bureaucratic hurdles overcome, it could improve its visibility on the world stage.
Collaboration: Andrew Wasike and George Okachi
